Whisky

I have to begin this column with a glass of Pol Roger cuvée Winston Churchill. It’s fancy stuff, and — according to some — it’s a bit early in the day to be quaffing Champagne.  “How early is too early?” I’ve often wondered that. The jury is out but most of the best authorities say that any time before actually awakening is too early.   Why the shampoo (as David Niven was wont to denominate the beverage)?  It seemed like the appropriate expedient in response to a bulletin I received from a Trump-skeptical friend. It came in over the headline, “Trump’s first mistake.

James Bond’s most impressive talent is not his prowess as a spy or his skills of seduction. It’s his ability to always get exactly what he wants at the bar. In the 1954 novel Live and Let Die he orders a round of Old Fashioneds while on a train to meet Felix Leiter, his CIA opposite number. Not only does the buffet car make them for Bond, they even have his preferred brand of bourbon, Old Grand-Dad. You try pulling that sort of thing on the Acela from Penn Station to DC. ‘Sorry Solitaire, they wouldn’t do us a cocktail, but I’ve got a cup of Lipton’s and a bag of pretzels.’ We’d all like to drink like Bond but, lacking his miraculous powers, we need to be in the right sort of bar to do it.